A Rainy Day in Larswood
by Late to the Party
Summary: It starts how it always starts: with words scratched into a journal. It ends where it ends. Possibly. For Kartyna, life in Candlekeep was idyllic, her return home triumphant(?), and the journal chronicling her life unbiased(?) and impeccable(?). Whatever one writes down in one's own hand can always be trusted, right?
1. 1

Dear journal,

Today you are the only friend I can trust. But maybe even you'll betray me. Maybe the lines I write will be altered, that your ink form will somehow shift like the faces of those I see at night, those I see in my dreams. Not just when I sleep, but when I wake. Little flashes, like quicksilver meeting lightning. I know I've confided in you before but now I fear my only solace is nothing more than a lie.

And so, old friend, I'm going to do the unthinkable. I'm committing you to the pyre. I'm sorry.


	2. 2

The flames licked the pages of the aged and weathered tome. Kartyna, of whom no one outside of Candlekeep ever pronounced her name right, watched, her hands tightly clenched. The hideous nightmare was over. It had to be over. Gods, let it be over.

The searing warmth rose, scattered in a myriad of scintillating hues, and then, the burnt-out husk collapsed in on itself, tossed high as black dust.

Finally satisfied, she allowed her shoulders to relax, and the first, gasping sobs began to wrack her. The skies overhead, patchy grey, gave way to a streak of green brushed with sickly yellow. Kartyna – car-tee-na, her inner voice murmured – somehow shrugged her cloak tighter and backpedalled against a large tree. Maybe the giant spiders would consume her, maybe the bandits would return to Larswood, abduct and sell her into slavery after inflicting indignities upon her person. Maybe… she cut off with an abrupt yawn. Curling into a ball, the heaviness of her lids pulled her back into the waking nightmare that had become her life.


	3. 3

The words formed out of the ink, welling up from the parchment, fresh as when it was first made. As they appeared, a scene played out. "Heya, it's me, Imoen!"

Kartyna forced herself to turn away. The image shifted.

"Whatcha want?" Imoen again, this time to Dreppin. The old cow was sick, again. Dreppin so earnest, so bumbling, so uncertain, too afraid to pester Hull. But Imoen? Cheery, cheery Imoen, always so eager to lend a hand, so steadfast, so able to boost Kartyna's spirits… a lie all of it. Gorion wasn't even real. None of it was.

When she forced the sleep from her leaden eyes open, the journal was back in her lap. Two years ago, she would have screamed. Now her shoulders drooped, the pit of her stomach holding that bitter void, the emptiness and acceptance. She would never be free.


	4. 4

The soft waters held steady ripples, their reflections marred and smudged not only by the churned sediment, but by the blocky clouds above. The rain, as it fell, speared the surface, the shafts longer than any lance or pike. Kartyna registered the chill, the moistness in the air, the sodden, pooling muck spreading around the soles of her boots, seeping up through her cloak, through the seat of her breeches, down her inner thigh. Droplets fell against her hood, spraying in every direction, catching her eye, slapping her cheek. She drew herself in, aware the moss might as well be a sponge, a sponge her weight was squeezing.

A tremor ran through her frame, a racking, noiseless thing that could have been a cough had it not been a laugh. Bitterness stung the inside of her mouth, her throat. The journal bobbed merrily upon the pool, a pool that once drank the blood of the slain. She could still remember his face, his vulgar speech.

"So I kicked him in the head 'til he was dead!" That crass laughter. He wasn't laughing when Imoen's staff cracked his skull, when he slumped and drowned in less than a teacup of water.

The broad trunk felt reassuringly firm against her arched back, a back that that continued to protest, its complaints unheeded as a vision filled her mind anew.


	5. 5

Death. Death was its face, a skull, grinning, grotesque in its unlife. No, it was alive, somehow, a kind of unlife. A death that wasn't death, a malice, a hunger, and it locked its eyeless gaze on her, its empty sockets shimmering with pinpricks of orange fire…

Kartyna jerked back, her wrist catching the corner of the journal. Its brass triangle left a trail of crimson all the way down the inside of her forearm. With the violence of a sudden squall, the fury broke from her in a cloudburst and she hurled the tome high and hard, praying that her blood would be poison to its accursed pages.

Her prayers were never answered. The tome soared, arced, and landed with a gentle thud. Even before it did, Kartyna had found her feet and sprinted far beyond the treeline's break, as fast as her stubborn legs would carry her. It didn't matter. It would be back with her by morning. Maybe some goblin would pick it up, probably urinate on it. Perhaps a bear would eat it.

The root of a tree conspired with its trunk, and in the single headbutting bout that followed, Kartyna was not the undisputed victor.


	6. 6

"You must learn to be patient, my child. Everything will be explained in due time." The lie that was Gorion lectured a fidgeting and scowling Imoen, Imoen, who Kartyna had seen die a dozen times. Imoen, who always returned clasping her 'best friend's' hand, eyes bright as she clung with a grip that belied death. A grip that defied death. But out of the corner of Kartyna's eye, there was always that slight silver hue, that shifting mist. That lie.

That same lie was there the night Gorion died. The night murder stole her childhood. Murder should have claimed her life, but it was murder that exposed the lie for what it was. Only later did she understand, did she truly understand. The elf in the mines was right: they were doomed. His doom was to be bound to a sword, to know as his people, The People, slowly ebbed, waning, their inevitable decline reduced to a simple statement, an acknowledgement. But she? Her whole world was an illusion, a dream. None of it was real.

The journal filled her mind again.


	7. 7

At first, she toiled and offered aid to those who sought it, her heart still reeling at that terrible night. So moved was she by the tale of the wife who lost her husband, the miner, that she entered the mines just for her. Not for the gold, the renown, nor even for the bloated-gut mayor, whose filthy words stung against her like the barb of a wveryn, something that proved to be less of a metaphor and a reality two tendays from that afternoon.

The mines seemed to shrink back before her, as if somehow cowed by her very presence. It was the shadows that welcomed her, beckoning her in as the day receded, and where she trod, the very earth seemed to warm. Around her, her companions visibly twitched, Imoen biting her lower lip, then winking when caught, reaching to squeeze Kartyna's hand, her warmth a constant reminder of the pact they had made: never forsake a friend, Imoen vowed, slicing her palm after Gorion's demise. The night had swallowed them, concealing their whispered, desperate oath.


	8. 8

The Iron Throne was a megalith, a colossus wrought in stone, a tower to rival Candlekeep, the Friendly Arm Inn, the jewel in Baldur's Gate's crown. It was the place where Xan died. What was the point indeed, Kartyna questioned, as the elf's limp form twitched, then stilled, the moonblade no longer sheathed in blue flame but a dim glow that saw her reflection shimmer, clouded, shadowed. Part of her itched to raise the blade aloft, attempt to claim it, but Imoen's hand found hers, deep, deep sadness tinging her oddly sombre gaze, and Kartyna allowed herself to be drawn away, the blade abandoned. There would be time to bury the dead later, or so she thought. How wrong she was.


	9. 9

Her flight to Candlekeep behind her, Kartyna once again knew the sanctuary that stout walls provided, towering walls, walls of stone, even as the drizzle kissed her brow and wet her lips. Nothing seemed to have changed. Dreppin was as always, a bumbling, inept do-gooder, quick to please, quicker to trip; Hull was the grouch that threatened to tan her hide on multiple occasions but never raised a hand except to reach his flagon, and Imoen… Imoen was radiant. All but skipping along the flowers, twirling and leaping, planting herself right beneath Kartyna's nose from several paces away, beaming as she delighted in all that was home… Kartyna could even believe it had just been a vague and distant dream.

Far from Imoen's fears that the gates were barred to them, the Gatewarden himself flung open the doors and welcomed them, wayward waifs strayed too far from home. A clip around the ear for both of them, along with a rough embrace, his arms around their shoulders, even as he hauled them bodily inside, slamming the gate shut behind them. Hull grinned, then stood to attention at his superior's evil gaze, even going so far as to salute. The Gatewarden sombrely relayed how they recovered Gorion's body, how the old sage had been revived, how even now he was off searching for them. That night, terrible as it was, was behind them.

There was only one question that remained unasked: why had they returned?


	10. 10

It was strange being back in her old room. Her lessons resumed as if nothing had happened, and her mission to track down the leaders of the Iron Throne was blocked by an array of smiles, firm looks, and chores. No matter where she turned, or what she did, she wasn't permitted access to the library's higher levels. Instead, she swept the steps, polished the fountains, turned out the blankets of the bunkhouse while Imoen resumed her work in the inn. At one point, she was told to 'stop this nonsense', the warning issued by Karan, the threat by the lurking figure of Fuller, resplendent in his Watcher's plate. The quarterstaff that lazed in Fuller's hand was more than she could best with simply a quill, not without trying to scratch out his eyes. She wasn't that desperate.

And so the days dragged on. Every time she tried to reach out to Imoen, to remind her of the blood pact, she was met with a shrug. More and more lessons were piled, until one night, she climbed out of her cell window, shimmied along the ledge, and clambered up to the next floor. It was a terrible and terrifying memory; the slickness of the sea wind dampening the stones, the ever-present threat of rain, but somehow, her hands found the grooves, the juts. It didn't just come naturally to her, something drove her, a kind of hunger that went beyond simple yearning. It was raw, unbridled instinct, a need.

There she found them. Her quarry. Those who orchestrated that night, who had so nearly ended the life of Gorion. Something broke and she flew at them, her fingers becoming as claws. When the red haze cleared from her eyes, the throat of Rieltar Anchev was torn out, a bloody ruin. A part of her recoiled, staring at her fingernails wondering what she had done; another part rejoiced in it, revelling and promising more, so much more.


	11. 11

The catacombs was where the lie was unveiled. The lie that broke Kartyna's world. Fleeing down, down, down, the blood dripping off her hands, her nightgown stained, she broke through to the older, forgotten sections, her feet caked in dust, a trail of bloody footprints marking her passage.

In the darkened room, they approached her. Three of them, Gorion, Imoen, and her. She who had been there that night, the night Kartyna's world broke apart. She stood beside the figure in armour, the man who towered above Gorion and seemed to cut him down. She was the one who launched the blazing arrow that tore and embedded itself in Kartyna's shoulder, the pain of which set her feet to flight, even as Gorion called out to her.

Poisoned, Imoen said, asking Kartyna to return to them. A mistake, Gorion said, a tragic error.

"You do not understand," explained the woman, her hair as dark as onyx, her tone as soft as the whispering breeze. "Your life was never in danger; you are chosen to stand beside greatness, to serve."

Kartyna stood still, hearing without listening, registering without accepting.

"You are to be his sword, the sword that sows chaos. In your wake, terror. With the rising tide, he shall slaughter and ascend, and you, precious child, shall be first amongst those who follow him. His herald. That is the fate chosen for you, the fate you must embrace."

Bit by bit, Kartyna backed up, broke, and fled, turning tail and racing along the catacombs. Not a single tripwire barred her way; nothing to make the nightmare end. She ran and ran, the darkness dogging her steps, the chilling whispers alive in her head, telling her to submit. From the corner of her eye she saw the shapes flicker, a flash of quicksilver, the white mist, and then the faces of childhood appeared before her. She shoved, and Imoen broke against the wall, her head gashed open, seeping blood.

Kartyna didn't stop.

Three steps later, Imoen appeared again, her head whole. Another desperate shove. This time Imoen held her. Screaming, clawing, Kartyna threw her off and ran with all she had. She ran straight into Xan. His face twisted into a grotesque grin, the soundless laughing skull.


	12. 12

In Larswood, the rain misted, the splinters slowing, seeping into the earth around her saturating the bed of moss 'til it overflowed. The journal sat neatly in her lap, the page full of sketches. Imoen, Gorion, Dreppin, Fuller, Hull. Their charcoal visages seemed to dance, their eyes diminishing until there were only pinpricks of orange, their flesh receding 'til only the skull remained. All the skulls seemed to merge into one while around it, something akin to tears seemed to orbit. It offered a silent invitation.

Leadenly, Kartyna leafed through the pages. The skull grinned back on all of them. Somewhere near the centre, her fingers felt something warm, something… bone. A dagger. As she drew it from the journal, she understood. Like it, she was crafted from death; like it, she was a tool. Reaching up, she slashed across her own throat. Perhaps the dream would finally end.

As the warm fluid spilled down, she felt the skull scream its fury, felt herself growing weak. Her lips began to smile. Finally, she could rest.


	13. Epilogue

"Ah, the child of Bhaal has awoken. It is time for more experiments."

_Fin_..?


End file.
